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Nobel chair applauds Nihon Hidankyo, hibakusha efforts to keep A-bomb memory alive.
“Rather than internalizing their traumatic memories from that day, hibakusha continue to share them with the world, keeping them alive as a collective memory.” So said Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the 40-year-old chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, in an online interview with the Mainichi Shimbun ahead of the Dec. 10 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.
This year’s peace prize will be awarded to the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, commonly known as Nihon Hidankyo, the only nationwide group representing “hibakusha” survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Frydnes called the award “a way to honor not just Nihon Hidankyo, but all hibakusha, including those who are no longer alive with us today, and all those who died on the days of the atomic bombings, and the years that followed.”
When announcing the laureate in October, Frydnes acknowledged hibakusha’s campaigns that have helped people to “grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons.” During the Mainichi interview, he also appreciated their work of going abroad to give testimonies, creating anti-war educational campaigns based on their experiences, and so forth, saying, “I imagine that just telling their story can be difficult and it might be easier to stay silent. Despite their lingering dark memories and physical wounds, the hibakusha have shown resilience and strength.”
Frydnes emphasized that the individual stories of hibakusha combined become one massive force to demonstrate the inhumanity of nuclear weapons, thereby upholding the “nuclear taboo” — “a precondition of a peaceful future for humanity.” In Japan, there are many youth-led anti-nuclear campaigns that draw inspiration from hibakusha’s personal experiences, such as a project where high-schoolers create drawings that depict the townscape and people of Hiroshima in the hours after the atomic bombing. “First-hand testimonies play a central role for remembering what actually happened in the past. Nihon Hidankyo and the hibakusha’s work is very unique and special in that through decades of storytelling, they have kept tens of thousands of stories to help society understand their experiences,” says Frydnes.
Preserving tragic memory of Norway
Frydnes has experience dealing with the preservation and commemoration of tragic memory himself.
In 2011, he was given the task to lead the recovery of Utoya Island in southern Norway, shortly after a terrorist shooting attack there that took the lives of 69 participants of a Norwegian Labour Party-hosted youth camp. Along with the earlier attack in Oslo on the same day, it is said to have been the deadliest violence in Norway since World War II. In a matter of weeks after the incident, he visited the bereaved families and survivors, and attempted to engage in conversation with them for the first five to six years. He encountered parents overwhelmed with grief, anger and sorrow, as well as teenagers who quit school from the trauma of the shooting.
“After months and years, I gained their confidence and trust, and they opened up about their experiences. In the midst of frustration and darkness, each person had their own language of pain, their own story, and moved on at their own pace.”
A memorial center now stands on the island, to commemorate and preserve the memory of the victims. According to Frydnes, there was debate among the island residents, victims’ families, and such, regarding whether to preserve the cafeteria building where the students were murdered. Bullet holes from the attack mark the wall, and many families asked for the building to be demolished, as they “cannot live with the dark memories.” However, Frydnes realized that “to prevent a similar tragedy, we cannot remove the difficult past, and have to be honest about it.” Sections of the building, with the wall, have been preserved, and they are incorporated as part of a center that displays the stories and names of the victims, and hosts gatherings where survivors give testimonies.
Based on such experiences, Frydnes calls for the importance of keeping memories alive to pass on to the future. Threats of a nuclear war are escalating in the Middle East and Ukraine, while nuclear-armed states continue to test their nuclear weapons. “We as a greater society have a responsibility to accept and learn from each and every one of hibakusha’s precious memories,” says Frydnes.
(mainichi)